What Came Before
by Alexandri
Summary: Before the Girardis even thought about Arcadia, Grace and Adam were best friends facing the world together. But sometimes the world is too big for two thirteenyearolds to handle alone.
1. Chapter 1

September 4, 2000

Adam Rove was not your average thirteen-year-old. He wasn't what you would call abnormal by any means, but he differed from his classmates in one very significant way. He and his mother were very close. There were times when young Adam was in such perfect synch with is mom that he was certain he knew exactly what she was thinking. He wished today was one of those times.

Elizabeth Rove had been standing at the kitchen counter, spatula held loosely in one hand as she stared at some distant something only she could see. Adam hated when she got like this, lost in her own internal world. It always seemed to hurt her. He wanted to erase that look on her face, eradicate it from wherever it lived inside her. He decided to keep her from burning the eggs instead. Start on the things he could definitely do now, work on the harder things later.

"Mom," he said quietly, carefully laying his hand on her arm. The last thing he wanted to do was startle her. "Mom," he called louder. "The eggs are done."

Elizabeth blinked and glanced at her surroundings in bewilderment. "Where..." she murmured as her gaze fell on her son. Her eyes seemed to snap into focus and she gave him a brilliant smile that was a touch too bright to alleviate the tightness developing in Adam's chest.

"The eggs, Mom," he said quietly.

"Oh, right." She turned off the burner then surveyed the eggs. "They're overcooked. You don't mind having cereal, do you?"

Adam shook his head and began to fix a bowl. "Mom?"

"Yeah, baby?"

He made a quick face at "baby" before asking, "What were you thinking about just now?"

Elizabeth stiffened for a moment before shaking her head and discarding the eggs. "Nothing."

"It looked more like something than nothing," Adam murmured before shoving a spoonful of sugar-coated Cheerios in his mouth.

"I was just daydreaming. Really, it's nothing you have to worry about."

_Is it something _you're _worried about?_ The words burned on the tip of his tongue, held back only by his mouthful of milk. He ate the rest of his breakfast in silence figuring it was the wise thing to do. But he strongly doubted he had nothing to worry about.

* * *

It had almost become a game—sort of a twisted scavenger hunt. Where has Mom passed out this time? Would it be in the living room? The dining room? The powder room by the den? The kitchen? Grace Polk shuddered but crept closer to her destination. She hated it most when she found her mother on the kitchen floor. It brought back the memory of Becky Coogan backing out of the room and out of a two-month friendship that had shown such promise. Grace took a deep breath and shoved the memories to the back of her mind. The mission now was to finish her roundabout route to the kitchen and hope she find her mother on the way.

She didn't and she found herself hoping her mother had stumbled into bed for once as she stepped into the kitchen. Her dad was there, kneeling beside his wife slumped against the cabinets under the sink. "Ah, Sarah," he sighed. "Let's get you up." He draped a limp arm around his neck and carefully lifted her in his arms.

He turned around, stilling when he caught sight of his daughter standing in the doorway. Neither spoke, choosing to stare at each other over the rank, prone figure of Sarah Polonsky. Then Sarah snorted and wriggled in her husband's arms, challenging his grip. He readjusted his hold on his wife as he and Grace pretended he hadn't seen her glare of disgust and sadness and she hadn't witnessed the rampant shame he attempted to hide beneath a pleasant but distant manner.

Her father headed toward her and Grace wordlessly stepped out of the doorway. He paused and braved meeting her gaze one more time. "We'll get through this, Grace. _She'll_ get through this. Whatever...pain is driving her to this will pass."

Grace didn't want to fight so she nodded though they both knew they didn't believe his hopeful words. As she went through the almost mechanical routine of making her breakfast, Grace allowed herself to admit something she usually tried not to think about. After over three years of her mother's drinking and her father's discreet attempts to make her better, Grace doubted they'd ever get through this.


	2. Chapter 2

Grace had come to the conclusion long ago that youth wasn't all it was cracked up to be. You had just as many problems as adults did without enough authority to do much of anything about them. Of course, being an adult wasn't all that great either as far as she could tell. The only thing that made adulthood even remotely preferable to youth was autonomy. Even that was severely limited. The government allowed a person only so much room, just enough to make you think you were free when really you're just as powerless as any child. You just got to make more money. Even that wasn't guaranteed.

Adam silently leaned against the low wall outside of Arcadia Middle School next to where Grace sat. His hands were stuffed in the pockets of his hoodie and he stared solemnly at the ground at their feet. He hadn't said much all day and Grace didn't like it. Adam, while not a particularly extroverted person, wasn't the quiet sort. Though she hadn't said anything about it, his increasing bouts of quiet, which had started over the summer, worried her even if it did make her feel less alone somehow.

Still, she didn't know what was wrong or how to find out or even what to say if she did discover what was wrong. So they sat and watched their schoolmates board the various buses or get into their parents' cars or walk or whatever they did after school. The crowd thinned until there were only a handful of kids left in the yard. Grace thought she should probably head home but she didn't want to leave Adam.

She was chewing the inside of her lip trying to decide what she was going to do when Adam shifted next to her. "I don't want to go home," he murmured, the sorrowful tone in his voice all the more painful because that had always been Grace's line, not his.

"Want to go to the sewers?"

Adam shuddered. He'd grown to like the sewers well enough, but Grace was the one who loved them. "Can we go to the park instead?"

Grace thought about all the noisy little kids and their parents that were sure to be there. It really wasn't her preferred environment but she figured she could make the sacrifice for Adam. "Let's go."

"Cool," Adam said, giving her a pleased smile that was only a mere shadow of the one she was used to.

Grace shook her head, pushing aside the nagging thought that she should just ask him what was wrong. But they'd made a silent pact a long time ago, back when her mother first started drinking and Grace had thought it was a temporary thing: don't ask, don't tell.

The two kids grabbed their things, retrieved their bikes and headed for the park on the way to Adam's. Grace knew that it was the park where their mothers met; where she and Adam had first become friends running around as the kids today were bound to. But she didn't remember it nor did she want to visit it. She really would have preferred going to the sewers with its dark, gritty stench. It suited her own mood much better.

They were sweating when they reached their destination—their moods, however, had lightened considerably. Unceremoniously clamoring off of their bikes, they collapsed in the sun-warmed grass near the lake while Adam rummaged through his backpack. He pulled out a bag that turned out to contain several sheets of glitter-dusted construction paper. He handed her a quarter of the sheets since Grace wasn't nearly as quick or talented at paper-folding as Adam. She watched as he folded his first sheet—a fancy little thing that looked more like a kayak than your typical paper boat. She shot him an amused look. They both knew that her boats would always be on the plain side and not just because she hadn't participated in Mrs. Rove's origami phase a couple years ago.

Their little fleet grew, Grace's simpler ones looking like sturdy tugboats among Adam's flashier canoes and schooners and yachts. They worked mostly in silence with Adam occasionally mentioning a technique that she blithely ignored. Occasionally, Adam would make a flower or an airplane for no apparent reason. Once all the paper had been used, Adam carefully packed up the boats and they lugged them to the lake a few steps away.

They divvied their stock and Grace waited for Adam to make the first move. Usually, he followed her lead but today it seemed like they were in the middle of something Adam needed to do. They sat for awhile, neither speaking nor lost in their individual thoughts. Instead, they enjoyed the unacknowledged connection between them. A smile tugged at Grace's lips as she realized Adam was like a sweet, weird little brother who took care of her in his own quiet way as much as she took care of him in her snarky, assertive way.

Little kids gathered around them. Delighted with Adam and Grace's paper stash, they begged to put the boats in the water. Without conference, Adam and Grace agreed and sat back to watch the kids launch the boats. Grace smirked as the ducks quacked indignantly as they flapped and dodged the fleet. A glance showed Adam had his usual good-natured glow. Sometimes, Grace conceded, the park was just as good as the sewers.


End file.
